Rantings of my choice, generally centered around that which immediately effects me.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On Motherhood: Part I: Pregnancy

As most of you know I am new to the motherhood. It has been, and will continue to be, an incredibly humbling experience. I am continually amazed at what has been given to me, and I want to chronicle that amazement. I will start at the beginning, and continue as long as I feel like it.

I found out that I was pregnant on April 22nd, 2007. This was a rough week, as I was attending the funeral of my best friend's child. The whole week I was waiting for my period, and it never came. The previous month I had a week between new birth control prescriptions, and that is when I conceived. The day of the funeral, I was so glad that I did not know "for sure" that I was pregnant, because I imagined how tough that would be to get through. The next day I took a pregnancy test, and it showed a positive result almost immediately.

This was odd for me. As I was preparing to take that test, I held my breath, not knowing what I wanted the result to be. I was just ending my first year of teaching, and my husband and I were just ending our "reckless party phase." I worried that if the test was positive, I would be irritated and displeased. I called my husband into the bedroom to wait with me, but I didn't know how to say, "You need to wait with me while the pregnancy test I just took registers." Instead I just confused him by asking him to sit in the room with me. He walked into the bathroom and saw the white stick with the two windows. "Is that a pregnancy test?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What does it say?"

"It's positive." This is where I surprised myself. My eyes welled up with tears of joy and anticipation. My husband laughed and kissed me. Then I punched him in the belly. (There is another story behind that, if you need to know ask and I'll respond.)

So began our journey into pregnancy. It was a bizarre one. It began with extreme fatigue, followed by...well by nothing. I never got morning sickness, never felt moody (or no more moody than I already was). Up until the first kick, pregnancy was much like the rest of my life. I didn't even get the "omg look at my boobs" moment, because I have always been blessed/cursed with large breasts.

Then the kicks started. It was bizarre. I felt the alien inside of me. I kept having strange fantasies that involved bursting rib cages and fear filled onlookers. It took a long time for my husband to feel any kicks, and so I felt very isolated in this experience. No one told me about how your body is no longer for you. Each movement is for someone else. I had to eat when I didn't feel like it, and I had to eat foods that I didn't particularly like. No one told me about the strange side-effects of pregnancy. Did you know that increased sinus problems come with pregnancy? Yup, and you can't take any medication for it, because of the baby. I also got my first ever (and I include infancy with this) ear infection. It was awful. And the heartburn. I had always heard about third-trimester heartburn from the pressure of the giant fetus. But it seemed that I had heartburn from the moment that that stick said positive. It was incessant. My body was no longer in my control.

A very positive side-effect of pregnancy for me was the need to get organized. I had heard of nesting, the desire for a clean home for baby, but I never experienced that. I have never been much of a cleaner, so my sister decided to "nest" for me, thank goodness. I felt the need to become super-teacher and filing queen at home. It was stressful for many people. I had thousands of lessons ready in advance. I wrote 12 weeks of lessons for my substitute. I organized books at home. I just didn't feel the need to dust or vacuum.

I worked through my entire pregnancy. Many of my students have children, and they were telling me to take off, but I couldn't. To me, leaving before labor meant that I was a step closer to being a mother. I wasn't quite ready for that. I mean, a real person who needs me to love them, unconditionally? That is too much. I just needed to get through the semester, then I could think of motherhood.

My daughter was very accommodating about that. She waited until the day after I administered my last final before she broke my water. Then things got sticky.